Rep. Brett Davis, R-Oregon, announced Monday that he will be running for the Republican nomination for Wisconsin’s next lieutenant governor.
“I know it will take strong conservative leaders with experience to get our state back on the right track, and put people back to work,” Davis said at a press conference Monday.
He added he will cut wasteful government spending 100 times that of the lieutenant governor’s office budget, an amount that equals around $40 million, in his first year in office.
Davis said he believes that direct experience makes him “the most qualified, experienced candidate for this office.”
Davis said he plans on using that direct experience to transform the lieutenant governor’s office into the leading taxpayer watchdog of the state, eliminating wasteful spending, fraud, and abuse.
“Davis and the Republican leadership continue to push the same failed economic policies that got us into this mess…Wisconsin citizens want more than partisan rhetoric and recycled proposals,” Former Vice President of the Madison Chamber of Commerce and Democratic candidate Harry Henry Sanders, said in a statement.
As a small business owner that helps fund other small businesses, Sanders said he would use his real world experiences to focus on jobs and job creation within the state. He added that he plans to make Wisconsin one of the leading states in environmentally friendly manufacturing jobs.
UW political science professor Charles Franklin of UW-Madison said the public usually goes to the polls knowing very little about the lieutenant governor position, and that voters often know little about the candidates.
“We aren’t going to see any ad wars for lieutenant governor,” Franklin said.
Despite lieutenant governor being the next in line to the governor if the governor had to leave office, the position rarely receives any coverage.
In an effort to further the knowledge of the lieutenant governor’s office, Sanders said he has been spending the last six weeks traveling to 35 counties all across the state. He added that he plans on reaching out to the grass-roots level, and giving local people fresh ideas.
“People know me everywhere,” he said. “When I come to a town I’m not just seen as the politician.”
